1. Field of the Invention.
The invention, in general, relates to a novel diminution and emulsifying apparatus useful in food processing and, more particularly, to an apparatus of the kind operating with augers and rotary chopping knives for preparing, from large pieces of raw materials, fillings for boiled, smoked, or cured sausages and the like, of selective degrees of fineness.
2. Description of the Prior Art.
In the manufacture of sausage products, raw materials, i.e. meat, fat and other ingredients, are chopped in diminution machines which as a rule operated with augers and rotary chopping knives. Depending upon the kind of equipment and the desired end product, diminution is carried out in a number of steps commencing with coarse chopping and proceeding to finer degrees of diminution, the final stage being usually performed in a so-called sausage cutter.
In any event, known sausage producing machines, such as meat grinders and cutters, as well as the individual process steps are dependent upon the desired end product and are controlled by operational processes controlled by, or responsive to, the equipment and the condition of the material being processed. The interdependence between the technological process steps and the constructive characteristics of the processing machinery define the end product as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of any one of the machines in the operating cycle.
A first operational principle or phase of the operational cycle is characterized by the feeding and diminution of the raw material and relates directly to the grinding operation including feeding by an auger and chopping by a rotary chopping knife. That is to say, the material to be processed is conveyed or fed and compressed by the auger or feed screw to the cutting system which chops the raw material for transfer into another processing machine.
In principle, the feeding action in meat grinding machinery involves frictionally feeding and supporting the material prior to its being ground or chopped.
A second operational principle relates to super-fine chopping which is performed primarily in sausage cutters in which knives are rotating at a very high speed. For their chopping and diminuting action, these cutters rely in part upon the inertia of the mass of the raw material particles. In addition to being minced to a degree of extreme fineness, the raw material is also emulsified and mixed within the cutter. It is simplest form, such a cutter may be a concave toroidal bowl rotating about its axis with a multiple curved knife being partially submerged in the annular channel of the bowl and rotationally driven about an axis extending normal to the axis of the toroidal bowl.
Mixing of different raw materials and the infusion of spices and other ingredients constitute the a third operational principle.
The mixing aggregates used for this purpose are well known. But it is also possible to utilize cutters as well as meat grinders for the mixing action by direct feeding of the ingredients to be mixed with the raw materials into the grinder or cutter.
A fourth principle of the operation relates to filling of the prepared sausage pudding into casings by means of a filling machine. The prepared sausage pudding is fed into the filling machine through a hopper thereof and is pressed into the casing through a funnel-shaped exit by means of a pump. As the casing is filled it gradually slips off the funnel neck.
Proportioning of the filled casing is controlled by the operation of the filling machine, by intermittently interrupting its filling action. The casing is then mechanically or manually severed or cut into individual sausages for further processing by curing, smoking or cooking, for instance.
The raw material is usually fed into meat grinders and similarly working diminution machinery by way of a hopper and is then conveyed by the auger journaled in the pressure housing to a cutter arrangement. The augers and the pressure housing serve to support, to convey, and--to a certain extent--compress the raw material.
This may be accomplished by pressure and feed augers of predetermined geometric structures and pitches and by additional elements, such as flue gaps, which further improve the operation.
The diminution machine for superfine chopping, i.e. the cutters previously mentioned, are as a rule disposed in a horizontal plane and are journaled for rotation about their own axis. The knives extending into the bowl of the cutter are curved or shaped like a sickle with the cutting edge at the convex edge and are rotating at a very high speed. Advantageously, the cutting is performed under vacuum pressure. Other super diminution equipment such as high speed grinding, chopping or knife aggregates are available to provide extremely finely chopped raw materials.
All hitherto known processes of and machinery for producing sausage filling are functioning in accordance with the mentioned principles and are structured accordingly. It will thus have been seen that the technological sequence of sausage production is quite complex for it invariably involves repeated conveying and receiving of intermediate product from one stage and machine to another.